Psychology of Everyday Things

• Gulf of Execution


  Where they try to figure out how it operates
• Gulf of Evaluation


  Where they try to figure out what happened
• Two parts of an action

  • Doing - executing the action
  • Interpreting - evaluating the results
• Seven stages of action

  1. Goal (form the goal)

  2. Plan (the action)

  3. Specify (an action sequence)

  4. Perform (the action sequence)

  5. Perceive (the state of the world)

  6. Interpret (the perception)

  7. Compare (the outcome with the goal)
• The seven-stage action cycle is simplified, but it provides a useful framework for understanding human action and for guiding design
• Human thought is mostly subconscious
• Why do we need to know about the human mind?

  Because things are designed to be used by people, and without deep understanding of people, the designs are apt to be faulty, difficult to use, difficult to understand
• Disciplines that study the mind

  • Behavioral and Social Science
  • Cognitive Science
  • Neuroscience
  • Philosophy
  • Information and Computer Sciences
• Most of the brain's operations are subconscious, hidden beneath our awareness. It is only the highest level, called REFLECTIVE, that is conscious
• Overlearning


  Conscious attention is necessary to learn most things, but after the initial learning, continued practice and study, sometimes for thousands of hours over a period of years, produces that psychologists call overlearning
• Declarative Memory


  Punctual memory, earlier questions were memory for factual information
• Procedural Memory


  Procedure or recalling the activities performed
• Three levels of processing

  • Visceral - the most basic level of processing. Sometimes referred to as the "lizard brain"
  • Behavioral - home learned skills, triggered by situations that match the appropriate terms
  • Reflective - home of conscious cognition
• All three levels of processing work together and play essential roles in determining a person's like or dislike of a product or service
• The behavioral level, which is the home of interaction, is also the home of all expectations based emotions, of hope and joy, frustration and anger
• Understanding arises at a combination of the behavioral and reflective levels. Enjoyment requires all three levels